


and i guess that's fine

by bandage



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Divorce, Family Issues, Gen, POV Second Person, implied disordered eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 11:02:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandage/pseuds/bandage
Summary: ”Um.” She stammers. Fixes her glasses. ”Do you have problems at home?”





	and i guess that's fine

**Author's Note:**

> title from flatsound: learning to hate you as a self defense mechanism

i.

”Hey.” Asriel nudges your hand and points to the window. ”Look at this.” He breathes on the glass and draws a furry figure with a long robe and huge horns. It’s wearing a heart necklace. ”It’s the God of Hyperdeath.”

You tell him the name is stupid. Your drawing has a wide mouth and gloopy eyes, it’s a lot scarier than his. He tells you it looks boring. The chocolate drinks get pushed to the side and turn cold.

 

ii. 

You’re eating dinner and Mum stands with her arms crossed. Dad rubs his face. They’re doing their best not to raise their voices but Dad sounds strained, like it pains him to speak, and Mum has lost the gentleness she carries. The hardness in her voice is unnatural. You shove food in your mouth and Asriel kicks your shins when you let the half-chewed mush drop back onto the plate.

Dad spends more and more time at the flower shop and comes home late in the evening. Mum buries herself in anything that keeps her busy, whether it’s work or knitting or baking, and when both of them are home it’s angry silence or clipped conversations. And that is just _fine_ with you.

After dinner Dad pets your head and says he’s going out for a walk. Mum sobs quietly when she thinks her children can’t hear her, and Asriel sits on the bed with you and lets you flip through his school books.

 

iii.

”This is the final form,” Asriel says. His drawing has large wings and a blurry torso with sharp claws. You tell him that it looks even dumber than it did before. ”You’re just jealous. Yours doesn’t have one.”

It doesn’t. You add a tiny coffin next to it. Asriel must notice you’re upset because he lets you pick all of the traits and colours for the seven souls, and you spend the entire walk home trying to pair them up as accurately as you can.

 

iv.

Days before Dad moves out, he stops coming for dinner and instead returns home when Mum is already getting ready for bed. He uses the dusty spare bedroom and only picks up clothes from the other one. Mum scrubs the stove-top for the third time in an hour with the excuse that she missed a spot when she doesn’t want to admit she’s exhausted and hasn’t slept well in weeks. She looks old like this.

Dad is miserable. Mum is resentful. Asriel plays video games on the computer and doesn’t look up when Dad suggests that they should go to the diner together sometime. You’re left alone staring at the front door with no Dad and Mum doesn’t even give you a kiss because she’s too puffy from weeping.

You eat chocolate cake and frosting with your bare hands, hunching over the trash can.

 

v.

Miss Alphys wrings her claws, folds them in her lap, then wrings them again. 

”Um.” She stammers. Fixes her glasses. ”Do you have problems at home?”

You write dirty words on the chalkboard. Everyone snickers but the teacher stares at you with big eyes and furrowed brows, stupidly opening and closing her mouth like a fish. She’s going to call your parents after class.

 

vi.

Asriel doesn’t wish you good night when he goes to sleep.

You end up lying awake for hours.

 

 


End file.
